Miss Clare Remembers and Emily Davis Page 36

  'Well now, what's the trouble?' asked the doctor kindly.

  It appeared that Gloria's 'summer cold' refused to go. She complained of a sore throat, and had a stubborn cough which grew worse at night.

  'Let's have a look,' said Doctor Martin, fishing the spatula from a glass of disinfectant.

  Gloria began to wail.

  'Give over, do!' begged her mother. 'And open your mouth.'

  Doctor Martin expertly held down the child's tongue during one of the lulls in her whimpering.

  'Tastes nasty!' whined the child when the instrument was removed.

  'Maybe,' said the doctor amiably. 'I should think most things taste nasty with that throat.'

  He pressed her neck glands, and then took out his stethoscope. After the examination, he sat at his desk and wrote the prescriptions.

  'Now, this one is for tablets which she must suck slowly. Not more than six a day, mind you. Read the label carefully. You can read, Mrs Petty?'

  The question was asked casually. There were still several people among Doctor Martin's patients who were unable to read despite a century of compulsory education.

  'A bit,' replied Mrs Petty

  'Not more than six during the twenty-four hours. They should settle the infection.'

  He held up the second slip of paper.

  'This is the cough cure recipe. A teaspoonful when it is troublesome.'

  She took the two papers almost reverently, and put them carefully inside a dilapidated patent leather handbag. She was about to leave when Doctor Martin motioned her to the chair again.

  'This child's tonsils want attention. Bring her back in a fortnight. And her teeth have caries—are going bad. That means the second ones may be infected. She's having too many sweets, Mrs Petty. Cut them out.'

  'But she likes a bit of chocolate! Her gran brings her a bar every day!'

  'Ask her to bring an apple instead. Chocolate will rot her teeth and make her too fat. She's overweight now. You're storing up trouble for the future, if you don't feed her properly. We've talked about this before.'

  'Well, I'll try,' said Mrs Petty grudgingly, 'but it's her gran you ought to talk to.'

  'Are you still working?' asked the doctor, showing her to the door.

  'Every afternoon,' said the woman, her eyes brightening. 'Down the new fish shop. It pays for me bingo, Mondays.'

  'D'you take the child too?'

  'No, Gran comes up. I leaves a bit of tea for 'em both.'

  Doctor Martin had seen those teas once or twice. Bought pies, packets of crisps, sliced wrapped bread, glutinous shop jam and a pot of well-stewed tea. Not a ha'p'orth of nourishmerit in the lot! Even the milk was tinned. He had seen the opened tin standing on the table, with a large blow-fly in attendance.

  'See the child gets eggs, fresh milk, some meat and plenty of fruit,' said Doctor Martin for the hundredth time. 'She needs building up.'

  He opened the door, and Mrs Petty made her departure.

  'Building up,' she echoed, when she gained the lane. 'He's gettin' past it. Says the kid's too fat and then, in the next breath, wants buildin' up.'

  'Can I have an ice-cream?' cried the child, as the village shop came in sight. 'Can I, mum? Can I?'

  'I'll see. Doctor only said: "No sweets." Yes, all right. I'll get you a lolly, love.'

  She felt quite sure an ice-cream wouldn't hurt her. After all, mothers always knew best.

  ***

  Doctor Martin worked his way steadily down the list of patients. There were a few unexpected visitors among them, such as Joe Melly the shepherd, who had nicked the top off a troublesome spot on his wrist, and who now had a fat shiny hand which throbbed painfully, and a dangerous red line creeping up his arm.

  There was seventeen-year-old Dicky Potts, with yet another boil to be lanced. There was garrulous Mrs Twist, who enjoyed fainting fits when life became too much for her—or she was getting the worst of an argument. Jane Austen would have diagnosed the vapours. Doctor Martin could do little more. There were the two youngest children of Minnie Pringle, smothered in spots, hot, flushed and tearful, with furred tongues and high temperatures, who were despatched to bed promptly by the old doctor.

  'And I'll call in on my rounds,' he told scatter-brained Minnie, who stood looking more like a bewildered hen than ever. 'They've got measles. You should have had more sense than to bring them out, Minnie.'

  Might as well talk to a brick wall, he told himself, watching the trio depart up the lane.

  'Who's next?' he asked of the two or three remaining patients. Mrs Barber, a comparative newcomer to Beech Green, rose with her daughter, a fair-haired schoolgirl, and the two followed Doctor Martin into his surgery.

  'What's the trouble?' asked Doctor Martin of the mother. She gazed at him in silence and, to his dismay, her mouth began to tremble and her eyes fill with tears.

  The doctor turned to the girl who was looking at her mother with mingled impatience and disgust.

  'Are you the patient?'

  'I s'pose so,' the girl shrugged.

  Mrs Barber produced a handkerchief and blew her nose noisily.

  'We think she's in trouble,' she said tremulously. There was only one condition which was described to Doctor Martin in these terms.

  'Then I'd better ask you a few questions,' said the old man gently.

  He put them simply, and the girl replied in an off-hand way. Obviously, the mother was more upset than the daughter.

  'Lie on the couch,' directed Doctor Martin, 'and we'll have an examination. There's nothing to fear.'

  When it was over, and the suspicions confirmed, the doctor told them that the baby would be born early in March, and gave them the address of the ante-natal clinic. He was kind and uncensorious, doing his best, by being completely matter-of-fact, to ease the tension of the unhappy situation.

  'Perhaps you would wait outside a moment, while your mother has a word with me,' he said.

  When the girl had departed, the mother's tears began to flow again.

  'The shame of it! Only sixteen—barely seventeen when the baby comes—and no father! What will the neighbours think? We've given her everything she wants, tried to bring her up nice, and now look what's happened!'

  Doctor Martin let her run on in this vein until she had had her outburst.

  'Did you explain the facts of life to the child?'

  'Well, no. It's so embarrassing, isn't it? You know, it never seems the right moment. Anyway, the school should teach her that these days.'

  'These days,' said the doctor, 'are much the same as any other days. Parents still have duties towards their children.'

  'I blame her Gran,' said Mrs Barber, sniffing. 'She was supposed to go there straight after school on the days I was working. She never bothered if Audrey was late. I bet all this happened then.'

  'And how old is her grandmother?' asked Doctor Martin mildly.

  'Eighty—but very healthy.'

  Doctor Martin felt some sympathy with this absent and elderly scape-goat, and said so.

  'It's no good casting round for someone to blame,' he continued. 'You know the situation—it's all too common, unfortunately—and you must all make the best of it as a family.'

  'That boy'll have to marry her,' said Mrs Barber fiercely.

  'If he loves her, he'll want to,' agreed the doctor, 'but I can't see anyone benefiting from a shot-gun wedding, least of all your daughter and the baby.'

  He patted the woman on the shoulder, and walked with her to the door.

  'Say as little as you can to her until you've had time to cool down. You'll say things you'll regret all your life if you are too hasty now. Look after that girl of yours. She needs all the help she can get, silly child, and you're the one she'll turn to, if you'll let her.'

  He watched the two depart, and beckoned his last patient into the surgery.

  Elaine Burton was fifty-two, as Doctor Martin knew well, but she might have been sixty-two from her haggard looks. Her husband worked at a printer's
in Caxley and her two children also worked there. They were unmarried and still lived at home.

  Mrs Burton's main problem was her old mother, now nearly ninety, who lived with them. Brought up in a strict Victorian way, the old lady remained a martinet despite failing health. Her daughter, acting as buffer between the demands of the younger generation and the old, came off worst in the household, as Doctor Martin knew well.

  'I think I need a tonic,' said his patient wearily. 'I'm tired all day, and when I get to bed I can't sleep. Mother needs seeing to at least twice in the night, and I think I've got into the habit of being on the alert all night. It's really getting me down, Doctor Martin.'

  He surveyed the woman with an expert eye. She had been pretty once. He remembered her as a young woman with her first baby. She had been trim and lively, with soft dark hair, and a quick smile which revealed dimples.

  Now she was running to fat, and was pale and listless. Blue smudges under her eyes bore testimony to lack of sleep. Her hair was lank, her neck decidedly grubby. Her whole bearing spoke of exhaustion and self-neglect.

  'I'll put you on some iron tablets,' said the doctor, drawing his pad towards him. It was plain that the woman was anaemic and over-worked.

  'How's your appetite?'

  'I don't fancy much. By the time I've spooned mother's food into her, I don't want my own.'

  'Do you have a cooked meal?'

  'When the others get home, but I don't really want it then.'

  'Milk? Eggs?'

  'I could never take them, even as a child.'

  The old doctor sighed. Here was yet another case of the dying sapping the living, but what could one do?

  'And how is your mother?'

  'To be honest, a terrible trial, doctor.'

  'Can't your brother have her for a while? To give you a break?'

  Mrs Burton snorted.

  'He's under his Ethel's thumb, and she refuses point-blank to give any help with ma. Besides, ma hates her like poison. It would never do.'

  She could have added that her own husband's attitude was much the same as Ethel's, but loyalty kept her silent.

  'We might be able to get the old lady into a home, you know.'

  'She'd never hear of it. And I wouldn't want to send her away, despite all the work. It's the washing and drying that gets me down. I have to wash bedding and nightgowns every day—sometimes twice a day. It's far worse than having a baby to look after. Still, it's got to be done. I wouldn't have her moved. She's my mother, after all.'

  'Do the young ones help?'

  Elaine Burton gave a hard laugh.

  'They take the tray up now and again, and switch on the radio for her, but that's about the lot. They nag me to send her away, and she nags me to keep them quiet, and tells me I've not brought them up respectful. You know how it is.'

  Doctor Martin nodded sympathetically. He knew indeed.

  He felt sorry for them all—the unhappy, cross old lady, confined to her bed; the exuberant young people criticised at every turn, the husband condemned to watch his wife's health slowly seeping away and, chiefly, Elaine Burton torn this way and that, by the demands of all, and fast becoming too tired to carry the heavy burden of the combined duties of daughter, wife and mother.

  'You should get away with your husband for a holiday,' he told her seriously. 'If your brother won't have your mother, I can arrange for her to go into hospital for a fortnight. Now, talk it over. I know it won't be easy, but it's no good knocking yourself up. Where will the family be, if you have to give up?'

  The woman was visibly moved and gave him a shaky smile, as she held out her hand for the prescription.

  'I'll think about it, but I can't see it coming off,' she said honestly.

  Doctor Martin showed her to the door.

  'I'll drop in and see the old lady one day soon,' he promised. 'Meanwhile, take those tablets, and some good food.'

  He watched her go sadly, then returned for his bag. Off to see two of his patients in Caxley Cottage Hospital, and then he must set about his rounds, he told himself.

  He locked his desk, and the drugs cupboard, and went thoughtfully to his car.

  19. Doctor Martin Looks Back

  CAXLEY Cottage Hospital was a small building erected in the twenties, and opened by the Mayor of the day with considerable civic pomp.

  It served the area well, but now there were rumours of its closure, much to the indignation of the local people. As they pointed out to each other, by the time you had been dragged all the way to the county hospital, twenty miles distant, and waited in the queues of traffic which had to be encountered on the way, you would probably be dead on admission.

  'And who wants to go all that distance to visit relatives?' they demanded. 'And who can afford the fares there, anyway? A dam' silly idea shutting the Cottage. Hope it never happens.'

  Doctor Martin agreed with them. He could quite see that a more modern operating theatre was necessary, and that the place was uneconomic to run, but there was still plenty of minor surgery and certain illnesses which could be dealt with in this little place, thus relieving pressure on the larger hospitals at the neighbouring towns.

  His first patient was in high spirits when he went to see her in the children's ward. Mary Wood was seven years old, and had had her tonsils removed.

  'Mummy's fetching me tomorrow,' she told him triumphantly. 'And I'm going to be home for tea. And I'm going to have a puppy.'

  'What? For tea?'

  The child smiled indulgently at this little joke, revealing a gap where her two front milk teeth had vanished.

  'I'm not a cannibal,' she answered, bringing out this new, half-understood word with considerable pride.

  The remark amused Doctor Martin for the rest of the day.

  His other hospital patient was less cheerful. Old George Smith was recovering from acute bronchitis, and was fearful of what the future might hold.

  'My old woman ain't up to nursing me, sir, and we can't abear the idea of living with our Nell, good girl though she be. They've got them two strapping boys, hollering about all day, and playing that electric guitar all night fit to blow yer 'ead off. Us old folks couldn't stand it, and they don't want us anyway.'

  'Would she be able to look in to your home and give a hand? The district nurse could call each morning. We'll fix up something, never fear.'

  'We likes to be independent,' said the old man obstinately. 'And anyway, our Nell goes out cleaning every morning; she's got enough to do. No, let's face it, doctor, you keeps us old folks alive too long these days—and we're not wanted. Time was, this bronchitis of mine would've carried me off. Now I'm still 'ere, and a nuisance to everybody.'

  Tears of self-pity rose to his eyes.

  'Rubbish!' said Doctor Martin robustly, patting the wrinkled hand on the coverlet. 'You're just a little low in spirits. Wait till you're home again! You'll be as fit as ever.

  'If there's one thing I 'ates,' continued the old man, 'it's the work-house. I knows things is better now, but I can recall the time when 'usbands and wives were parted at the gate, and sometimes never saw each other no more. 'Twas a terrible thing that—to be treated worse than animals.'

  'Things like that don't happen now,' the doctor assured him, but the old man rambled on, unconscious of interruptions.

  'Seems to me the young people ain't got no respect for their parents today. They do say that in China the old folks are looked up to because they're reckoned to be the wisest of the family. Don't see much o' that in these parts. It's time I was dead, doctor, and that's the truth of it.'

  Doctor Martin did his best to speak comfortingly to the old man, but it was clear that he was sunk too deeply in his own miseries and fears to heed much that was said.

  Doctor Martin returned to his car and drove carefully through Caxley High Street. It was with a sigh of relief that he turned the nose of the car northwest, and regained the leafy lanes leading to Beech Green, Springbourne and Fairacre.

  'Thank God,' he
said aloud, 'my practice is in the country.'

  He pulled off the road, as he so often did, on the brow of a hill. Here there was a fine view of the countryside, backed by the splendid whaleback of the downs.

  The doctor wound down the window and breathed in the fresh air, tugging a pipe from his pocket as he did so.

  He filled it, meditating upon his morning's work, and the people with whom it had brought him in contact.

  What problems people had! If one believed all one read in newspapers and magazines, or saw at the theatre or on the ubiquitous "Box", the only problem besetting people these days was sex. Good grief, thought the doctor impatiently, that was a pretty minor problem, taking all ages of men and women into account! He'd put the problems of health, family and money, as being quite as important as sex—certainly from the age of forty-odd onward, which included a goodly proportion of the nation, after all.

  His mind dwelt on poor old George Smith's worries. Here was the age-old difficulty of keeping the older generation happy and cared-for. Something had gone amiss with the pattern of family life today, making this problem even greater than it had been in earlier generations.

  Yes, George had a point about being kept alive too long—but a doctor's first duty was to his patient, and he must do his best to prolong life. Nevertheless, it created problems for all.

  He looked back upon his own memories. His grandmother had lived in a tall town house, four storeys high, and two unmarried daughters and an unmarried son lived with her. She had borne twelve children and eight had survived. The house always seemed full of nieces and nephews, of all ages, coming and going, bearing little presents, chattering about their families, showing Grandma their new babies, or pirouetting before the old matriarch as they displayed the latest fashions. There was a lot said against those large Victorian families, but at least there was a feeling of belonging—and even if there were battles now and again, a common enemy had only to appear to weld the clan into solid unity.